Exactly.

Maybe if we didn't spend $400 billion dollars on Iraq we wouldn't have a budget crisis. Bush is asking another $100 billion for FY2008.

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Ok, not going to lie, I used to support this war. I think that we should have done something to prevent another 911, but 6 years later and 400 billion is enough. It's getting out of hand!

Besides all of the other rediculous spending our government continues to increase every year. We just need to fire them all and start from scratch. It's rediculous. They are all cowards that want nothing more than power and money. Our forefathers would be turning in their graves!

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Don't hold your breath. haha.

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Precisely because smaller cars don't use as much gas.

Therefore, they don't pay the same amount of tax as those that consume more while traveling the same distance. I'm sure I missed the quip about fairness somewhere from these government twats; the only "creativity" exhibited by these creeps is the creation of new taxes and cute (read: often irritating & typically draconian) ways to collect these routine rapes on our livelihood.

Ya know.. When I have a shortfall in my budget, I cut spending and live within my means. Gee, if only I could just point a gun at my boss and "tax" him extra because it's only "fair".

To add insult to injury, we're told it's for our own good when we don't even get a say in how this money is spent or even have easy access to information that would tell us where the money went in the first place.

At least a thief is more honest than a politician: when he steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him.

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Exactly. And while the Federal gas tax may have stayed the same, the states have been steadily raising gas taxes. The cowards in the Maine legislature last year passed an AUTOMATIC yearly gas tax increase pegged to inflation. As inflation in recent years has been driven mainly by energy prices, we get a double whammy as oil prices go up. Mass also has a personal property tax on cars, and Maine has an obscenely high vehicle excise tax you pay every year.

I wouldn't object to a higher gas tax if it were done INSTEAD of Federal fuel economy standards, which are full of hidden costs to industry and the consumer.

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Word. thats the beauty of a fuel based road tax. If people want to continue to buy enourmous SUVs and pick up a large portion of the DOT's tab for the rest of us that is fine by me.

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I'm not so sure saying SUV/(CUV) and sports cars should just be cast to pay higher tax just becuase of what they are. GRANTED most SUV's/Sports cars get horrible MPG, true. but there are examples of such that aren't that bad, and it more depends on how you drive them. A lotus can get decent MPG if driven normal, Vette on the highway is up here (again, keeping it close to speed limits), my buddies S2000 is decent highway, even my V8 sports car is above 25 mpg highway at 80 mph, thats close to what my parents got in their V6 Accord (driving style is VERY important i know).

i'd much rather see something based on the mpg you're getting. but thats sort of based on type of driving, city vs highway vs mix.

really no clear cut answer...i'd say raise the tax on gas like others have said...but no one would dare say that in an election year or ever probably.

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There is already a tax based on the MPG you get. It is called a gas tax. Which they simply need to grow some balls and raise, rather than stick a GPS in every car and set up another bureaucracy to collect. AGGHGH this is insane.

Can't people vote these idiots out? If I were running I would think it easy to point out the insanity of this plan.

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Which is why you see so many out-of-state plates in VA with parking passes to Virginian apartment complexes and condos. When I received my car tax bill last month, I went out to affix the new sticker right next to the yellow inspection certification on the windshield. Off-topic: renewing the safety inspection is fun too, especially when *only* the state's paid monkey is allowed to remove the old sticker and apply the new one - you're SOL every time they scratch up your dash with that huge ass knife.

Anyway, walking in the parking lot, I started paying attention to the other cars there just to see how many other early birds paid the tax like I did. I didn't find too many. I found something else that had previously been spared my scrutiny: out-of-state tags, and I'm not talking about a couple of cars from Maryland. One comes from as far as Wisconsin.

Turns out that in the county where I live (specifically the municipality within the county) a car must be taxed if it's "garaged" in the "jurisdiction of collection" for 30 days or more. However, if it's registered (or even co-registered) to a valid out-of-state address of yours (say you're military and your spouse lives elsewhere while you're stationed here) then it's up to the state to prove it was "garaged" for more than 30 days before they can levy and collect the personal property tax.

The big kicker here is that the cost of making such a case is notably more expensive and time-consuming than simply collecting the tax, and since the county doesn't have the same resources available to them as would be case on the state level, the county keeps letting it go. Effectively the county has to sue you in a court of law, and while you would absorb all that cost in the event the county could make a winning case, the time, expense, and manpower required to make this a standard practice across the board isn't worth the return to a government entity that's already back-logged and inefficient to begin with, especially when the bad PR from suing poor people is taken into consideration. Of course, this varies by county through the state, since it's the counties that collect the tax, not the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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